Fig. 6

Production of the green alga Dunaliella tertiolecta in our novel photobioreactor prototype. a We used ammonium as a representative and measureable nutrient in our experiments to compare mass transfer characteristics across the membrane scaffolds over a 5-h period, resulting in a mass transfer rate of 1.2 mg/h. b We then added nutrient medium to the reservoir and grew D. tertiolecta in the algal tank using standard parameters (see text for details). Based on cell density increase (cell counts—line graph) as well as estimated doubling rates (bar graph), we found that D. tertiolecta growth in our system is comparable to growth reported in the literature. These experiments provide preliminary evidence for the nutrient removal and biomass production capabilities of our system. Error bars indicate 2 SE of the mean